Technical Field
The present disclosure is directed to a fluid ejection device that includes a die having nozzles, heaters, driving circuitry, and memory.
Description of the Related Art
Microfluidic die are fluid ejection devices that include chambers, nozzles, and passive electronic components that expel fluid from the chambers. These die typically do not include drive circuitry on the same semiconductor substrate as the chambers and nozzles. The drive circuitry is often provided on a separate die, on a different substrate, that is coupled to the microfluidic die. The separate die may be an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is incorporated within a same final product or package and electrically coupled to the microfluidic die to provide control and drive signals to the microfluidic die to control ejection of the fluid.
As each of these die have very different components, the microfluidic die being passive and the ASIC having active semiconductor components, like transistors, these two different die are formed with very different semiconductor processing steps. One of the reasons to form two separate die is associated with size and a number of contact pads that are associated with a number of nozzles on the microfluidic die. It is common to have one drive signal for one nozzle and thus, a contact pad for each nozzle. As microfluidic die are including more and more nozzles, the number of contact pads is increasing and taking up valuable space on the microfluidic die. Incorporating driving circuitry with the associated contact pads into a microfluidic die having a large number of nozzles has become a challenge.